It was as bleak and
sad a day
as one could well imagine. The time of year was early in
December, and
the daylight was already fading, though it was only a little
past the middle
of the afternoon. John Finch was driving toward his farm,
which he had
left early in the morning to go to town; but to judge from his
face one
might have been sure that his business had not been
successful. He looked
pinched and discouraged with something besides the cold, and
he hardly
noticed the faithful red horse which carefully made its way
over the frozen
ruts of the familiar road.

There had lately been
a few days
of mild weather, when the ground had had time to thaw, but
with a sudden
blast of cold this deep mud had become like iron, rough and
ragged, and
jarring the people and horses cruelly who tried to travel over
it. The
road lay through the bleak country
side of the
salt-marshes
which stretched themselves away toward the sea, dotted here
and there with
hay-cocks, and crossed in wavering lines by the inlets and
ditches, filled
now with grayish ice, that was sinking and cracking as the
tide ran out.
The marsh-grass was wind-swept and beaten until it looked as
soft and brown
as fur; the wind had free course over it, and it looked like a
deserted
bit of the world; the battered and dingy flat-bottomed boats
were fastened
securely in their tiny harbors, or pulled far ashore as if
their usefulness
was over, not only for that season but for all time. In some
late autumn
weather one feels as if summer were over with forever, and as
if no resurrection
could follow such unmistakable and hopeless death.

Where the land was
higher it
looked rocky and rough, and behind the marshes there were some
low hills
looking as if they were solid stone to their cores, and
sparingly overgrown
with black and rigid cedars. These stood erect from the least
to the greatest,
a most unbending and heartless family, which meant to give
neither shade
in summer nor shelter in winter. No wind could overturn them,
for their
roots went down like wires into the ledges, and no drought
could dry away
the inmost channels of vigorous though scanty sap that ran
soberly through
their tough, unfruitful branches.

In one place the hills
formed
an amphitheatre open on the side toward the sea, and here on
this bleak
day it seemed as if some dismal ceremony were going forward.
As one caught
sight of the solemn audience of black and gloomy cedars that
seemed to
have come together to stand on the curving hillsides, one
instinctively
looked down at the level arena of marsh-land below, half
fearing to see
some awful sacrificial rite or silent
combat. It
might be an angry company of
hamadryads who had
taken the shape of cedar-trees on this day of revenge and
terror. It was
difficult to believe that one would ever see them again, and
that the summer
and winter days alike would find them looking down at the
grave business
which was invisible to the rest of the world. The little trees
stood beside
their elders in families, solemn and stern, and some miserable
men may
have heard the secret as they stumbled through the snow
praying for shelter,
lost and frozen on a winter night.

If you lie down along
the rough
grass in the slender shadow of a cedar and look off to sea, in
a summer
afternoon, you only hear a whisper like "Hush! hush!" as the
wind comes
through the stiff branches. The boughs reach straight upward;
you cannot
lie underneath and look through them at the sky; the tree all
reaches away
from the ground as if it had a horror of it, and shrank from
even the breeze
and the sunshine.

On this December day,
as the
blasts of wind struck them, they gave one stiff, unwilling
bend, and then
stood erect again. The road wound along between the
sea-meadows and the
hills, and poor John Finch seemed to be the only traveler. He
was lost
in thought, and the horse still went plodding on. The worn
buffalo-robe
was dragging from one side of the wagon, and had slipped down
off the driver's
knees. He hardly knew that he held the reins. He was in no
hurry to get
home, cold as it was, for he had only bad news to tell.

Polly Finch, his only
daughter,
was coming toward home from the opposite direction, and with
her also things
had gone wrong. She was a bright, good-natured girl of about
twenty, but
she looked old and care-worn that day. She was dressed in her
best clothes,
as if she had been away on some important affair, perhaps to a
funeral,
and she was shivering and wholly chilled in spite of the shawl
which her
mother had insisted upon her carrying. It had been a not
uncomfortable
morning for that time of year, and she had flouted the extra
wrap at first,
but now she hugged it close, and half buried her face in its
folds. The
sky was gray and heavy, except in the west, where it was a
clear, cold
shade of yellow. All the leafless bushes and fluffy brown
tops of the dead asters and golden-rods
stood out
in exquisitely delicate silhouettes against the sky on the
high road-sides,
while some tattered bits of blackberry vine held still a dull
glow of color.
As Polly passed a barberry bush that
grew above
her she was forced to stop, for, gray and winterish as it had
been on her
approach, when she looked at it from the other side it seemed
to be glowing
with rubies. The sun was shining out pleasantly now that it
had sunk below
the clouds, and in these late golden rays the barberry bush
had taken on
a great splendor. It gave Polly a start, and it cheered her
not a little,
this sudden transformation, and she even went back along the
road a little
way to see it again as she had at first in its look of misery.
The berries
that still clung to its thorny branches looked dry and
spoiled, but a few
steps forward again made them shine out, and take on a beauty
that neither
summer nor autumn had given them, and Polly gave her head a
little shake.
"There are two ways of looking at more things than barberry
bushes," she
said, aloud, and went off with brisker steps down the road.

At home in the
farm-house Mrs.
Finch had been waiting for her husband and daughter to come,
until she
had grown tired and hungry and almost frightened. Perhaps the
day had been
longer and harder to her than to any one else. She had thought
of so many
cautions and suggestions that she might have given them both,
and though
the father's errand was a much more important one, still she
had built
much hope on the possibility of Polly's encounter with the
school committee
proving successful. Things had been growing very dark in Mr.
Finch's business
affairs, and they had all looked with great eagerness toward
her securing
a situation as teacher of one of the town schools. It was at
no great distance,
so that Polly could easily board at home, and many things
seemed to depend
upon it, even if the bank business turned out better than was
feared. Our
heroine had in her childhood been much praised for her good
scholarship,
and stood at the head of the district school, and it had been
urged upon
her father and mother by her teachers, and by other friends
more or less
wise, that she should have what they called an education. It
had been a
hard thing both for her father to find the money, and for her
mother to
get on without her help in the house-work, but they had both
managed to
get along, and Polly had acquitted herself nobly in the ranks
of a neighboring
academy, and for the last year had been a pupil
in
the
normal school. She had been very happy
in
her school life, and very popular both with scholars and
teachers. She
was friendly and social by nature, and it had been very
pleasant to her
to be among so many young people. The routine and petty
ceremony of her
years of study did not fret her, for she was too strong and
good-natured
even to be worn upon or much tired with the unwholesome life
she lived.
It was easy enough for her to get her lessons, and so she went
through
with flying colors, and cried a little when the last day
arrived; but she
felt less regret than most of the girls who were turned out
then upon the
world, some of them claiming truthfully that they had finished
their education,
since they had not wit enough to learn anything more, either
with school-books
in their hands or without them.

It came to Polly's
mind as she
stood in a row with the rest of the girls, while the old
minister who was
chief of the trustees gave them their diplomas, and some very
good advice
besides: "I wonder why we all made up our minds to be
teachers? I wonder
if we are going to be good ones, and if I shouldn't have liked
something
else a great deal better?"

Certainly she had met
with a
disappointment at the beginning of her own career, for she had
seen that
it was necessary for her to be within reach of home, and it
seemed as if
every school of the better class had been provided with a
teacher. She
had been so confident of her powers and mindful of her high
standing at
the normal school that it seemed at first that a fine position
ought to
be hers for the asking. But one after another her plans had
fallen to the
ground, until this last one, which had just been decided
against her also.
It had never occurred to her at first as a possible thing that
she should
apply for the small town school in her own district; to tell
the truth,
it was a great downfall of pride to the family, but they had
said to each
other that it would be well for Polly to have the winter at
home, and in
spring she could suit herself exactly. But everybody had felt
the impossibility
of her remaining idle, and no wonder her heart sank as she
went toward
home, knowing that she must tell them that another had been
chosen to fill
the place.

Mrs. Finch looked at
the fire,
and looked out of the window down the road, and took up the
stocking she
was knitting and tried to work at it; but every half-hour that
went by
doubled her uneasiness, and she looked out of the window
altogether at
last, until the fire was almost burned out, and the knitting
lay untouched
in her lap. She was a tall, fine-looking woman, with a worn,
well-featured
face, and thinnish hair that had once been light brown, but
was much faded
and not a little gray in these later years. It had been
thought a pity
that she married John Finch, who had not half so much force as
she, and
with all her wisdom and affection and economy, every year had
seemed to
take away something from them, leaving few gifts and gains in
exchange.
At first her pride and ambition, which were reasonable enough,
always clung
to her husband's plans and purposes; but as she saw year after
year that
he stayed exactly in the same place, making little headway
either in farming
or anything else, she began to live more and more in her
daughter's life,
and looked eagerly to see her win her way and gain an
honorable place,
first in her school life, and afterward as a teacher. She had
never dreamed
beforehand of the difficulties that had assailed Polly since
she came home
the head of her class in June. She had supposed that it would
be an easy
thing for her now to find a good situation in a high or
private school,
with a capital salary. She hated to think there was nothing
for her but
to hold sway over the few scholars in the little unpainted
school-house
half a mile down the road, even though the girl, who was the
very delight
of her heart, should be with her so much more than they had
expected at
first. She was a kind, simple-hearted, good woman, this elder
Mary Finch,
and she had borne her failing fortunes with perfect bravery;
she had been
the sunshine and inspiration of the somewhat melancholy house
for many
years.

At last she saw her
husband coming
along the road, and even that far-away first glimpse of him
told her that
she would hear no good news. He pulled up the fallen
buffalo-robe over
his lap, and sat erect, and tried to look unconcerned as he
drove into
the yard, but it was some time before he came into the house.
He unharnessed
the horse with stiff and shaking hands, and gave him his
supper, and turned
the old wagon and backed it into its place before he came in.
Polly had
come home also by that time, and was sitting by the window,
and did not
turn to speak to him. His wife looked old, and her face was
grayish, and
the lines of it were hard and drawn in strange angles.

"You had better sit
right down
by the fire, John," she told him, "and I'll get you and Polly
a good hot
supper right away. I think, like 's not, you didn't get a
mouthful of dinner."

"I've no need to tell
you I've
got bad news," he said. "The bank's failed, and they won't pay
more 'n
ten cents on a dollar, if they make out to do that. It's worse
than we
ever thought it could be. The cashier got speculating, and
he's made 'way
with about everything."

It seemed to him as if
he had
known this for years, it was such an old, sad story already,
and he almost
wondered at the surprise and anger that his wife and Polly
showed at once.
It made him a little impatient that they would ask him so many
eager questions.
This was the worst piece of misfortune that had ever come to
him. Although
they had heard the day before that the bank would pass its
dividend, and
had been much concerned and troubled, and had listened
incredulously to
worse stories of the condition of the bank's finances, they
had looked
for nothing like this.

There was little to be
said,
but everything to be thought and feared. They had put entire
confidence
in this bank's security, and the money which had belonged to
John Finch's
father had always been left there to draw a good yearly
interest. The farm
was not very productive, and they had depended upon this
dividend for a
large part of their ready money. Much of their other property
had dwindled
away. If ever there had been a prospect of making much off the
farm, something
had interfered. One year a piece of woodland had been cleared
at considerable
expense, and on the day before its unlucky owner was to begin
to haul the
great stacks of fire-wood down to the little wharf in the
marshes, from
whence they could be carried away to market by schooners, the
fire got
in, and the flames of the fallen pines made a torch that
lighted all that
part of the country for more nights than one. There was no
insurance and
no remedy, and, as an old neighbor told the unhappy owner,
"the woods would
not grow again in his time." John Finch was a cheerful man
naturally, and
very sure of the success of his plans; it was rare to see him
so entirely
down-hearted and discouraged, but lately he had seemed to his
wife somebody
to be protected and looked after even more than Polly. She
sometimes felt
the weight of the years she had lived, and as if she must be
already very
old, but he was the same boyish person to her as when she had
married him;
it often seemed possible that he should have his life still
before him.
She could not believe until very lately that it was too late
for him to
start out on any enterprise. Time had, indeed, touched him
more lightly
than it had herself, though he had the face and something of
the manner
and faults of an elderly and unsuccessful man.

They sat together in
the kitchen,
which had suddenly grown dark. Mary Finch was as cold as
either of her
companions, and was angry with herself for her shivering and
want of courage.
She was almost afraid to speak at last for fear of crying; she
felt strangely
unstrung and weak. The two women had told John of Polly's
disappointment,
that the agent for the district had given the school to his
own niece,
a young girl from Salem, who was to
board at his house,
and help his wife as much as she could with the house-work out
of school-hours.
"It's all of a piece to-day," groaned the farmer. "I'm sorry
for ye, Polly."

"She may hear of
something yet,"
said Mrs. Finch, making a great effort to speak cheerfully.
"You know they
have her name at the normal school; people are always sending
there for
teachers, and oftentimes one fails at the last minute through
sickness,
and I shouldn't wonder if Polly found a good place yet in that
way."

"I declare I don't
know how we
shall get along," moaned Polly's father, to whom his
daughter's trouble
seemed only a small part of the general misfortunes. "Here's
winter coming,
and I'm likely to be laid up any day
with my rheumatics,
and I don't see how we can afford even to take a boy to work
for his board
and clothes. I've got a few trees I can cut, and one cow I can
sell; but
there are the taxes to pay, and the minister, and money to lay
out on fences,
come spring. The farm ran behind last year, too."

Polly rose impatiently
and took
down a lamp from the high chimney-shelf, knocking down the
match-box as
she did so, which was, after all, a good deal of relief. She
put the light
on the floor while she picked up the scattered matches, and
her mother
took a good look at her, and was somehow made to feel stronger
at the sight
of Polly's face.

"I guess we'd all
better have
some supper," said the girl. "I never should feel so
discouraged if I wasn't
hungry. And now I'm going to tell you what I mean to do. I'm
going to put
right to and go to work out-doors and in, and I'm going to
help father
same as if I were a boy. I believe I should like farming now
twice as well
as teaching, and make a good deal more money at it. I haven't
a gift for
teaching, and I know it, but I don't mean that what I learned
shall be
thrown away. Now we've got hay for the stock, plenty of it,
and we've got
potatoes and apples and turnips and cider in the cellar, and a
good pig
to kill, and so there's no danger that we shall starve. I'm
just as strong
as I can be, and I am going right to work, at any rate until I
get a school
with a first-rate salary that'll be worth more than my help
will here."

"I'm sure I don't want
you to
throw away such a good education as you've had, for us," said
Mrs. Finch,
sorrowfully. "I want you to be somebody, Polly, and take your
right place
in the world."

But Polly answered
stoutly that
she wasn't sure it was a good education until she saw whether
it was any
use to her. There were too many second-rate teachers already,
and she hadn't
any reason to suppose she would be a first-rate one. She
believed that
people had better learn to do the things they were sure to
have to do.
She would rather be a boy, and farm it, than teach any school
she ever
saw, and for this year, at any rate, she was going to see
whether her book-learning
wasn't going to be some help at home. "I did the best I could
at school,"
she said, "and it was easy enough to get my lessons, but now
I've come
against a dead-wall. I don't see but you both need me, and I'm
well and
strong as anybody alive. I'd a good deal rather work at home a
while than
be penned up with a lot of children, and none of us more than
half know
what we're about. I want to think a good deal more about
teaching school
before I begin to try in earnest."

"I shall be glad to
have you
help your mother," said John Finch, disconsolately, "and we'll
manage to
get along somehow."

"Don't be afraid,
father," responded
Polly, in really cheerful tones, as if she assumed her new
situation formally
at that moment. She went slowly down cellar with the lamp,
leaving her
parents in darkness; but by this time the tea-kettle had begun
to sing,
and a great glow of coals showed through the front slide of
the stove.

Mr. Finch lifted
himself out
of his chair, and stumbled about to get the lantern and light
it, and then
went out to feed the cattle. He still looked chilled, and as
if all happiness
had forsaken him. It was some little time before he returned,
and the table
was already set, and supper was nearly cooked and ready to be
eaten. Polly
had made a pot of coffee, and drank her first cup with great
satisfaction,
and almost without taking breath; but her father tasted his
and did not
seem to care for it, eating only a little food with evident
effort.

"Now I thought you
would relish
a good cup of coffee," said his wife, with much concern; but
the man answered
sadly that he couldn't eat; he felt all broken down.

"It was a perishing
day for you
to take that long ride. It's the bleakest road round here,
that marsh road
is, and you hardly ate a mouthful of breakfast. I wish you had
got something
to warm you up before you started to come back," said his
wife, looking
at him anxiously. "I believe I'll get you something now," and
she went
to find a treasured bottle, long stored away to be used in
case of chill
or illness, for John Finch was a
temperate man.

"I declare I forgot to
milk,"
he said, hopelessly. "I don't know 's such a thing ever
happened to me
before. I thought there was something else when I was out to
the barn,
and I sat down on the grin'-stone frame
and tried
to think what it was, but I couldn't."

"I'll milk," said
Polly; and
she whisked up-stairs and replaced her best dress, which had
been already
turned up and well aproned, by a worn old frock which she had
used on days
of cleaning, or washing, or other rough work, when she had
lent a hand
to help her mother. It was nothing new for her, a farmer's
daughter born
and bred, to undertake this work, but she made a distinct
change of direction
that night, and as she sat milking in the cold barn by the
dull light of
the lantern a certain pleasure stole over her. She was not
without her
ambitions, but they had never flown with free wings up an
imaginary career
of school-teaching. "I do believe mother and I can earn money
enough to
take care of us," she said to herself, "and next spring I'm
going to set
out as much land as father will let me have with
strawberries." Her thoughts
never were busier than that night. The two cows looked round
at her with
surprise, and seemed to value her good-natured words and
hurried pats as
she left them. She disturbed a sleepy row of hens perched on
the rail of
the hay cart, and thought it was a pity there was not a better
place for
them, and that they should be straying about. "I'm going to
read up some
of the oldnumbers of the Agriculturist,"
she
said, "and see what I can do about having eggs to sell." It
more was
evident that Polly was fired with a great enthusiasm, but she
remembered
suddenly another new great interest which was a secret as yet
even from
her mother. This remembrance gave her a little uneasiness.

It was still early
when the supper
table had been cleared away, and the milk strained and set
aside in the
pantry. John Finch had drawn his chair close to the stove, and
when his
wife and daughter sat down also, ready to begin the evening
which showed
so little promise of hilarity, they saw that he was crying.

"Why, father!" Polly
exclaimed,
half frightened, for this was something she did not remember
ever seeing
since she was a child. And his wife said nothing, but came and
stood beside
him and watched him as if the vague sense of coming trouble
which had haunted
her all day was going to explain itself by some terrible
crisis.

"I'm all broken down,"
the poor
man sobbed. "I used to think I was going to be somebody, and
get ahead,
and nothing has gone as I wanted it to. I'm in debt more than
you think,
and I don't know which way to look. The farm don't yield me as
it used
to, and I don't grudge what we've done for the girl, but it's
been all
we could carry, and here she's failed of getting a place to
teach. Everything
seems to go against us."

This was really most
sad and
death-like; it truly seemed as if the wheels of existence had
stopped;
there seemed to be nothing to follow this unhappy day but
disgrace and
despair. But Polly was the first to speak, and her cheeks grew
very red:
"Father, I don't think you have any right to speak so. If we
can't make
our living one way, we will another. Losing that money in the
bank isn't
the worst thing that could have happened to us, and now I am
going to take
hold with you right here at home, as I said before supper. You
think there
isn't much that a woman can do, but we'll see. How much do you
owe?"

But John Finch shook
his head
sadly, and at first refused to tell. "It would have been
nothing if I had
had my bonds to help me out," he finally confessed, "but now I
don't see
how I ever can pay three hundred dollars."

In a little while he
rose wearily,
though it was only a little past six, and said that he must go
to bed,
and his wife followed him to his room as if he were a child.
This breaking
down was truly a most painful and frightful thing, and Polly
was not surprised
to be wakened from her uneasy sleep a few hours later, for she
had worried
and lain awake in a way that rarely happened, fearing that her
father would
be ill, and wondering what plans it would be best to make for
his assistance
in the coming year. She believed that they could do much
better with the
farm, and she made up her mind to be son and daughter both.

Later Mrs. Finch
called her,
hurriedly coming half-way up the staircase with a light. "Your
father is
sick," she said, anxiously. "I don't know whether it is more
than a chill,
but he's in great pain, and I wish we could get the doctor.
Can't you wrap
up warm and go over to Minton's and see if they can't send
somebody?"

"There's nobody
there," said
Polly; "the boys are both away. I'll go myself, and get back
before you
begin to miss me;" and she was already dressing as fast as she
could. In
that quiet neighborhood she had no thought of fear; it was not
like Polly
to be afraid, at any rate; and after a few words to her
father, and making
a bright fire in the little fire-place of the bed-room, she
put on her
warm old hood and mittens, and her mother's great plaid shawl,
and scurried
away up the road. It was a mile and a half to the doctor's
house, and with
every step she grew more eager to reach it. The clouds had
broken away
somewhat, and the stars' bright rays came darting like
glistening needles
at one's eyes, so keen and piercing they were. The wind had
gone down,
and a heavy coldness had fallen upon the earth, as if the air,
like water,
had frozen and become denser. It seemed another world
altogether, and the
old dog, that had left his snug corner behind the kitchen
stove to follow
Polly, kept close at her side, as if he lacked his usual
courage. On the
ridges the cedar-trees stood up thinner and blacker than ever;
the northern
lights were making the sky white and strange with their
mysterious light.
Polly ran and walked by turns, feeling warmed and quickened by
the exercise.
She was not averse to the long walk at that time of night; she
had a comfortable
sense of the strong young life that was hers to use and
command.

Suddenly she heard the
sound
of other footsteps besides her own on the frozen ground, and
stopped, feeling
for the first time anything like fear. Her first impulse was
to hide, but
the road was wide and unsheltered, and there was nothing to do
but to go
on. She thought next that it might be somebody whom she could
send the
rest of the way, and in another minute she heard a familiar
whistle, and
called out, not without relief, "Is that you, Jerry?"

The figure stopped,
and answered
nothing, and Polly hurried nearer, and spoke again.

"For Heaven's sake,
what sends
you out this time o' night?" asked the young man, almost
impatiently; and
Polly in her turn became a little angry with him, she could
not have told
why.

"I'm not out for
pleasure," she
answered, with some spirit. "Father is taken very sick; we are
afraid it
is pneumonia; and I'm going for the doctor. There was nobody
to send."

"I was coming up from
Portsmouth
to-day," said the young man, "and I lost the last train, so I
came on a
freight train with some fellows I know, and I thought I'd foot
it over
from the depot. We were delayed a good while or it wouldn't
have been so
late. There was a car off the track
at Beverly."

He had turned, and was
walking
beside Polly, who wondered that he had not sense enough to
offer to call
the doctor for her. She did not like his gallantry, and was in
no mood
for friendliness. She noticed that he had been drinking, but
he seemed
perfectly sober; it was between Jerry Minton and herself that
something
almost like love-making had showed itself not long before, but
somehow
any tenderness she had suspected herself of cherishing for him
had suddenly
vanished from her heart and mind.

"I was all knocked of
a heap
in Salem this morning to hear that the bank had failed. Our
folks will
lose something, but I suppose it'll about ruin your father.
Seems to affect
him a good deal, don't it?"

"I've been turning it
over in
my mind to-day a good deal," said Jerry. "I hope you will call
on me for
anything I can do, 'specially now your father's going to be
laid up."

"Thank you," said
Polly, stiffly;
and presently she stopped in the road, and turned and looked
at him in
a sharp and not very admiring way.

"You might as well go
home,"
she told him, not unkindly. "I've got to the village now, and
I shall ride
home with the doctor; there's no need for you to come back out
of your
way." And Jerry, after a feeble remonstrance, obeyed.

The doctor was used to
being
summoned at such hours, and when he found it was Polly Finch
he dressed
hurriedly, and came down, brimful of kindness and sympathy, to
let her
in.

He listened almost in
silence
to what Polly had to say of the case, and then, taking a
bottle here and
there from his stores in the little room that served him as
his office,
he fastened his great-coat, and pulled down the fur cap that
had been a
valiant helmet against the blows of many winter storms, and
they went out
together to the stable. The doctor was an elderly man and
lame, and he
was delighted with the brisk way in which his young companion
stepped forward
and helped him. The lantern that hung in the warm little
stable was not
very bright, but she quickly found her way about, and the
horse was soon
harnessed. She found that the harness needed tightening, the
doctor having
used it that day for another carriage, and as he saw her try
it and rebuckle
it, he felt a warm glow of admiration, and said to himself
that not one
woman in a hundred would have done such a thing. They wrapped
themselves
in the heavy blankets and buffalo-skins, and set forth, the
doctor saying
that they could not go much faster than a walk.

He was still a little
sleepy,
and Polly did not have much to say at first, except in answer
to one or
two questions which he asked about her father's condition; but
at last
she told him of her own accord of the troubles that had fallen
upon them
that day. It already seemed a week to her since the morning;
she felt as
if she had grown years older instead of hours.

"Your father has a bad
trouble
about the heart," said the doctor, hesitatingly. "I think it
is just as
well you should know it, and if this is pneumonia, it may go
very hard
with him. And if he pulls through, as I hope he will if we
catch him in
time, you must see to it that he is very careful all the rest
of the winter,
and doesn't expose himself in bad weather. He mustn't go into
the woods
chopping, or anything of that sort."

"I'm much obliged to
you for
telling me," said Polly, bravely. "I have made up my mind to
stay right
at home. I was in hopes to get a school, but I couldn't do it,
and now
I can see it was meant that I shouldn't, for mother couldn't
get along
without me if father's going to be sick. I keep wishing I had
been a boy,"
- and she gave a shaky little laugh that had a very sad tone
in it, - "for
it seems as if father needed my help on the farm more than
mother does
in the house, and I don't see why he shouldn't have it," she
confessed,
filled with the courage of her new opinion. "I believe that it
is the only
thing for me to do. I always had a great knack at making
things grow, and
I never should be so happy anywhere as working out-doors and
handling a
piece of land. I'd rather work with a hoe than a ferule any
day," and she
gave the queer little laugh again. Nobody would have suspected
she found
it so hard to bear the doctor's bad news.

"But what is it you
mean to do?"
asked the doctor, in a most respectful tone, though he was
inwardly much
amused.

Polly hesitated. "I
have been
thinking that we might raise a good many more early
vegetables, and ever
so much more poultry. Some of our land is so sheltered that it
is very
early, you know, and it's first-rate light loam. We always get
peas and
potatoes and beans long before the Mintons and the rest of the
people down
our way, and there's no trouble about a market."

"But you'll have to
hire help,"
the doctor suggested.

And Polly answered
that she had
thought of that, but she knew she could manage somehow. "It's
a new thing,
you see, doctor," she said, much encouraged by his evident
interest, "but
I mean to work my way through it. Father has sold wood and
sold hay, and
if we had too much butter or too many eggs, and more early
potatoes than
we wanted, he would sell those; but it seemed as if the farm
was there
only to feed us, and now I believe I can make it feed a good
many other
people besides; and we must get money somehow. People let
girls younger
than I get married, and nobody thinks it is any risk to let
them try housekeeping.
I'm going to try farmkeeping."

The old doctor
laughed. "You've
got a wise head for such a young one," he said, "and now I'll
help you
every way I can. I'm not a rich man, but I'm comfortably off
for a country
doctor, and I've got more money put away than I am likely to
use; so, if
you fall short at any time, you just come and tell me, and
nobody shall
know anything about it, and you can take your own time to pay
it back.
I know more about doctoring than I do about farming, or I'd
give you plenty
of advice. But you go ahead, Polly."

Polly nestled down
into the buffaloes,
feeling already that she had become a business woman. The old
wagon bumped
and shook as they went along, and in the dim light Polly
caught sight of
the barberry bush - only a darker shadow on the high bank at
the side of
the road - and she thought of it affectionately as if it were
a friend.
Young Minton, whom they overtook at last, called out loudly
some good wish
that they might find Mr. Finch better, and the doctor asked
sharply who
he was, as they drove by. Polly told him, not without a
feeling of embarrassment,
which was very provoking to her.

"I must say I never
liked that
tribe," said the doctor, hastily. "I always hate to have them
send for
me."

When they reached the
farm, Polly
urged the doctor to go into the house at once. There was a
bright light
in the kitchen and in the bedroom that opened out of it, and
the girl was
almost afraid to go in after she had led the horse into the
barn and covered
him with the blanket. The old sorrel was within easy reach of
the overhanging
edge of the haymow, and she left him munching comfortably. As
she opened
the inner door of the kitchen she heard her father's voice,
weak and sharp,
and the doctor speaking in assuring tones with hearty
strength, but the
contrast of the two voices sounded very sad to Polly. It
seemed to her
as if she had been gone a great while, and she feared to look
at her father
lest he might have changed sadly. As she came to the bedroom
door, the
sight of her rosy-cheeked and eager, sorry face seemed to
please him, and
his own face brightened.

"You're a good girl,
Polly,"
said he. "I'm sorry you had such a bad time." He looked very
ill already,
and Polly could not say anything in answer. She rebuilt the
fire, and then
went to stand by the table, as she used when she was a little
child, to
see the doctor take out his doses of medicine.

Very early in the
morning Jerry
Minton's mother came knocking at the door, which Polly had
locked after
the doctor had gone away in the night. She had pushed the bolt
with unwonted
care, as if she wished to bar the entrance to any further
trouble that
might be lying in wait for them outside. Mrs. Minton was ready
with her
expressions of sympathy, but somehow Polly wished she would go
away. She
took a look at the sick man, who was sleeping after the
suffering and wakefulness
of the night, and shook her head ominously, for which Polly
could have
struck her. She was an unpleasant, croaking sort of woman, and
carried
in her whole manner a consciousness of the altered fortunes of
the Finches;
and she even condoled with Polly on her disappointment about
the school.

"Jerry spoke about
meeting you
going for the doctor," she said in conclusion. "I told him I
didn't know
what you would think about catching him out so late at night;
but he was
to Portsmouth, and mistook the time of the train. I've been
joking him
for some time past. I've about made up my mind there's some
attraction
to Portsmouth. He was terrible took with that Miss Hallett who
was stopping
to the minister's in the summer."

This was more than
Polly could
bear, for it was only a short time since Mrs. Minton had been
paying her
great attention, and wishing that she and Jerry would make a
match of it,
as the farms joined, and the farm-work was growing too heavy
for her as
she became older.

"If you mean Mary
Hallett, she
was married in September to a young man in Boston, partner
in a commission firm," said Polly; and
Mrs. Minton,
for that time at any rate, was routed horse
and foot.

"I hate that woman!"
she said,
angrily, as she shut the door, not very gently, after her.

It was a long, hard
illness that
followed, and the younger and the elder Mary Finch were both
tired and
worn out before it ended in a slow convalescence that in its
dangers and
troubles was almost as bad as the illness itself. The doctor
was most kind
and helpful in other ways than with his medicines. It was a
most cheerful
and kindly presence, and more than once Polly drove back to
the village
with him, or went with her own horse to bring him to the farm,
and they
became fast friends. The girl knew without being told that it
would be
a long time before her father would grow strong again, if that
time ever
came at all. They had got on very well without help, she and
her mother.
Some of the neighbors had offered their services in-doors and
out, but
these latter offers were only occasionally accepted.

The oxen had been
hired by a
man who was hauling
salt hay
to town, and Polly had taken care of the horse and the two
cows. She had
split the firewood and brought it in, and had done what little
rough work
had to be attended to in these weeks in spite of her mother's
unwillingness.
To tell the truth, she enjoyed it after the heat and stillness
of the house,
and when she could take the time to run out for a little
while, it was
always to take a look at some part of the farm, and though
many of her
projects proved to be castles in the air, she found almost her
only pleasure
in these sad winter days in building them and thinking them
over.

Before her father's
illness she
would have turned most naturally to Jerry Minton for help and
sympathy,
for he had made himself very kind and pleasant to her then.
Polly had been
thought a good match, since she was an only child, and it was
everywhere
known that John Finch and his wife had both inherited money.
Besides, it
gave the more dignity to her position that she had been so
long away at
school, and such good accounts of her standing there had
reached her native
place; and Polly was uncommonly good-looking, if the truth
must be told,
which Jerry Minton's eyes had been quick to notice. Though it
was known
at once through the town what a plight the Finches' affairs
were in, Jerry
had come at first, apparently unconscious of his mother's
withdrawal of
his attentions, with great show of sympathy and friendliness,
to offer
to watch with the sick man by night, or to be of any use by
day, and he
had been much mortified and surprised at Polly's unmistakable
repulse.
Her quick instinct had detected an assumption of condescension
and patronage
on his part as well as his mother's, and the growing fondness
which she
had felt earlier in that season turned to a dislike that grew
much faster
in the winter days. Her mother noticed the change in her
manner, and one
night as they sat together in the kitchen Mrs. Finch whispered
a gentle
warning to her daughter. "I thought one time that there might
be something
between you and Jerry," she said. "I hope you won't let your
duty to your
father and me stand in the way of your settling yourself
comfortably. I
shouldn't like to think we were going to leave you alone. A
woman's better
to have a home of her own."

Polly turned so red
that her
mother could see the color even in the dim light by which they
watched.

"Don't you worry about
me," said
the girl, "This is my home, and I wouldn't marry Jerry Minton
if he were
the President."

That was a black and
snowless
winter until late in January. There, near the sea, such
seasons are not
so uncommon as they are farther inland; but the desolation of
the landscape
struck Polly Finch all the more forcibly since it was answered
to by the
anxiety and trouble that had fallen into her life. She had not
been at
home in midwinter for several years before, and in those
earlier days she
had never noticed the outward world as she had learned to do
as she grew
older. The farm was a pleasant group of fields in summer,
lying among the
low hills that kept away both the winds from the sea and the
still keener
and bitterer northwest wind. Yet the plain, warm,
story-and-a-half house,
with its square front yard, with lilac and rose bushes, and
the open side
yard with its close green turf, and the barns and outbuildings
beyond,
was only a little way from the marshes. From Polly's own upper
window there
was an outlook that way over a low slope of one of the pasture
hills, and
sometimes when she felt tired and dreary, and looked out
there, it seemed
to her as if the half-dozen black cedars were standing there
watching the
house, and waiting for a still greater sorrow and evil fortune
to go in
at the door. Our heroine's life was not a little lonely, and
it would have
been much worse if she had not been so busy and so full of
care. She missed
the girls who had been her companions at school, and from
having her duties
marked out for her by her teachers, and nothing to do but to
follow set
tasks, and do certain things at certain hours, it was a great
change to
being her own mistress, charged with not only her own but
other people's
welfare.

The women from the few
neighboring
houses who came in to pay friendly visits, or to help with the
housework,
said very good things about Polly afterward. It had been
expected that
she would put on at least a few fine airs, but she was so
dutiful, and
worked so hard and so sensibly, and with such manifest
willingness and
interest, that no one could help praising her. A very old
neighbor, who
was still mindful of the proprieties of life, though she had
become too
feeble to be of much practical use in the event of a friend's
illness,
came one afternoon to pay a visit. She was terribly fatigued
after the
walk which had been so long for her, and Polly waited upon her
kindly,
and brought her some refreshments, all in the middle of one of
her busiest
afternoons. Poor old Mrs. Wall! she made her little call upon
the sick
man, who was almost too weak to even show his gratitude that
she had made
so great an effort to keep up the friendly custom, and after
saying sadly
that she used to be a great hand to tend the sick, but her day
was over,
she returned to the kitchen, when Polly drew the big
rocking-chair to the
warmest corner, and entertained her to the best of her power.
The old woman's
eye fell upon a great pile of newspapers.

"I suppose you are a
great hand
to read, after all your schooling?" and Polly answered that
she did like
to read very much, and added: "Those are old numbers of the Agriculturist.
Father has taken it a good many years, and I've taken to
studying farming."

Mrs. Wall noticed the
little
blush that followed this announcement, and did not question
its seriousness
and truthfulness.

"I'm going to help
father carry
on the farm," said Polly, suddenly, fearing that her guest
might think
she meant to marry, and only take the in-door part of the
farm's business.

"Well, two heads are
better than
one," said the old lady, after a minute's reflection; "only an
old horse
and a young one don't always pull well together. But I can
see, if my eyes
aren't what they used to be, that you are a good smart girl,
with some
snap to ye. I guess you've got power enough to turn 'most any
kind of a
mill. There was my own first cousin Serena Allen, her husband
was killed
in the last war, and she was left with
two children
when she wasn't a great deal older than you be, and she run
the farm, and
lived well, and laid up a handsome property. She was some
years older than
I, but she hasn't been dead a great many years. She'd plow a
piece of ground
as well as a man. They used to call her Farmer Allen. She was
as nice a
woman as I ever knew."

Polly laughed more
heartily than
she had for a good while, and it did her father good to hear
her; but later,
when the visitor had gone, in spite of Polly's offer to drive
her home
a little later when another neighbor returned the horse, our
friend watched
her go away with feeble steps, a bent, decrepit figure, almost
worn out
with spending so many years in a world of hard work. She might
have stood
for a picture of old age, and Polly felt it as she stood at
the window.
It had never come home to her thoroughly before, the
inevitableness of
growing old, and of the limitation of this present life; how
soon the body
loses its power, and the strength of the mind wanes with it.
All that old
Mrs. Wall could do in this world was done, and her account was
virtually
closed. "Here I am just starting out," said unlucky John
Finch's only daughter.
"I did think I might be going to have a great career sometimes
when I was
at school, and here I am settling down just like everybody
else, and only
one wave, after all, instead of being a whole tide. And it
isn't going
to be a great while before I have as hard work to get up that
little hill
as old Mrs. Wall. But I'm going to beat even her cousin Serena
Allen. I
am going to be renowned as Farmer Finch."

Polly found it very
hard to wait
until it should be time to make her garden and plant it, and
every day
made her more impatient, while she plied her father with
questions, and
asked his opinion so many times as to the merits of different
crops, that
he was tired of the subject altogether. Through many seasons
he had tried
these same experiments, with not very great success, and he
could not imagine
the keen interest and enthusiasm with which Polly's soul was
fired. She
had never known such a late spring, and the scurries of snow
in March and
early April filled her with dismay, as if each had blighted
and frost-bitten
her whole harvest. The day the garden was plowed was warm and
spring-like,
and John Finch crept out slowly, with his stick held fast in a
pale and
withered-looking hand, to see the work go on. He groaned when
he saw what
a great piece of ground was marked out by the long first
furrows, and felt
a new sense of his defeated and weak condition. He began to
protest angrily
at what he believed to be his daughter's imprudent nonsense,
but the thought
struck him that Polly might know what she was about better
than he did,
and he fell back contentedly upon his confidence in her, and
leaned on
the fence in the sun, feeling very grateful that somebody else
had taken
things in charge, he was so dull and unequal to making any
effort. "Polly's
got power," he told himself several times that day, with great
pride and
satisfaction.

As the summer went on,
and early
potatoes from the Finch farm were first in the market, though
everybody
who saw them planted had believed they would freeze and never
grow, and
the other crops had sometimes failed, but for the most part
flourished
famously, Polly began to attract a good deal of attention, for
she manifested
uncommon shrewdness and business talent, and her enterprise,
held in check
by her father's experience, wrought wonders in the garden and
fields. Over
and over John Finch said, admiringly, to his wife, "How Polly
does take
hold of things!" and while he was quick to see the objections
to her plans,
and had failed in his own life affairs because he was afraid
to take risk,
he was easily persuaded into thinking it was worth while to do
the old
work in new ways. It was lucky that Polly had a grand capital
of strength
to live upon, for she gave herself little rest all summer
long; she was
up early every morning and hard at work, and only wished that
the days
were twice as long. She minded neither heat nor rain, and
having seen her
way clear to employ a strong country boy whom the doctor had
met in his
rounds and recommended, she took care of the great garden with
his help;
and when she had occasion to do battle with the market-men who
came foraging
that way, she came off victorious in the matter of fair
prices.

Now that so much has
been said
about the days and the thoughts that led to the carrying out
of so bold
a scheme, it is a pity there is not time enough to give a
history of the
struggles and successes of that first summer. There never was
a young
man just "out of his time" and rejoicing
in his freedom,
who went to work more diligently and eagerly than Polly Finch,
and few
have set their wits at work on a New England farm half so
intelligently.
She managed a great flock of poultry with admirable skill. Her
geese walked
in a stately procession all that summer to and from their
pleasure-ground
at the edge of the marsh, and not a hen that stole her nest
but was tracked
to earth like a fox and cooped triumphantly. She tinkered the
rickety bee-hives
that stood in a long and unremunerative row in the garden
until the bees
became good housekeepers and excellent providers for very
shame. She gathered
more than one of the swarms herself without a sting, and by
infinite diligence
she waged war successfully on the currant worms, with the
result that she
had a great crop of currants when everybody else's came to
grief. She wondered
why the butter that she and her mother made brought only a
third-rate price,
and bought a pound of the very best for a pattern, and
afterward was sparing
of salt, and careful to churn while the cream was sweet and
fresh. She
sold the oxen, and bought another horse instead for the
lighter team, which
would serve her purpose better, and every morning, after the
crops began
to yield, a wagon-load of something or other went from the
farm to market.

She was as happy as a
queen,
and as well and strong as girls ought to be; and though some
people laughed
a good deal, and thought she ought to be ashamed to work on
the farm like
a man, they were forced to like her all the better when they
saw her; and
when she came into church on Sunday, nobody could have said
that she had
become unwomanly and rough. Her hands grew to need a larger
pair of gloves
than she was used to wearing, but that did not trouble her;
and she liked
a story-book, or a book with more lessons in it still, better
than ever
she had. Two girls who had been her best friends at school
came in the
course of the summer to visit her, and were asked out into the
garden,
after the early breakfast, because she must weed the beets,
and after sitting
still for a while on a garden bench, they began to help her,
and both got
headaches; but at the end of the week, having caught the
spirit and something
of the enjoyment of her life, they would have been glad to
spend the rest
of the summer with her. There is something delightful in
keeping so close
to growing things, and one gets a great sympathy with the life
that is
in nature, with the flourishing of some plants and the
hindered life of
others, with the fruitfulness and the ripening and the
gathering-in that
may be watched and tended and counted on one small piece of
ground.

Everything seemed to
grow that
she touched, and it was as if the strength of her own nature
was like a
brook that made everything green where it went. She had her
failures and
disappointments, and she reaped
little in some
places where she had looked for great
harvests.
The hay was partly spoiled by some wet weather, but there was
still enough
for their own stock, and they sold the poultry for double the
usual money.
The old doctor was Polly's firm friend, and he grew as fond of
her as if
she were his own daughter, and could hardly force himself to
take the money
she brought back in payment of a loan she had been forced to
ask of him,
unknown even to her mother, once when things went hard against
her enterprise
late in the spring.

John Finch gained
strength slowly
all that summer, but his heart grew lighter day by day, and he
and Polly
made enthusiastic plans in the summer evenings for increased
sheep-raising
on their wide-spread pasture-land, and for a great
poultry-yard, which
was to bring them not a little wealth. And on
Thanksgiving-day, when our
farmer counted up her gains finally, she was out of debt, and
more than
satisfied and contented. She said over and over again that she
never should
be happier than she had been that summer. But more than one
short-sighted
towns-woman wondered that she should make nothing of herself
when she had
had a good education, and many spoke as if Polly would have
been more admirable
and respectable if she had succeeded in getting the little
town school
teachership. She said herself that she was thankful for
everything she
had learned at school that had helped her about her farming
and gardening,
but she was not meant for a teacher. "Unless folks take a
lesson from your
example," said the doctor. "I've seen a good deal of human
nature in my
day, and I have found that people who look at things as they
are, and not
as they wish them to be, are the ones who succeed. And when
you see that
a thing ought to be done, either do it yourself or be sure you
get it done.
`Here I've no school to teach, and father has lost his money
and his health.
We've got the farm; but I'm only a girl. The land won't
support us if we let
it on the halves.['] That's what you
might have said,
and sat down and cried. But I liked the way you undertook
things. The farm
was going to be worked and made to pay; you were going to do
it; and you
did do it. I saw you mending up a bit of fence here and there,
and I saw
you busy when other folks were lazy. You're a good girl, Polly
Finch, and
I wish there were more like you," the doctor concluded. "You
take hold
of life in the right way. There's plenty of luck for you in
the world.
And now I'm going to let you have some capital this next
spring, at a fair
interest, or none, and you can put yourself in a way to make
something
handsome."

This is only a story
of a girl
whom fate and fortune seemed to baffle; a glimpse of the way
in which she
made the best of things, and conquered circumstances, instead
of being
what cowards call the victim of circumstances. Whether she
will live and
die as Farmer Finch, nobody can say, but it is not very
likely. One thing
is certain: her own character had made as good a summer's
growth as anything
on her farm, and she was ashamed to remember that she had ever
thought
seriously of loving Jerry Minton. It will be a much better man
than he
whom she falls in love with next. And whatever may fall to her
lot later,
she will always be glad to think that in that sad emergency
she had been
able to save her father and mother from anxiety and despair,
and that she
had turned so eagerly and readily to the work that was useful
and possible
when her own plans had proved impossible, and her father's
strength had
failed.

All that is left to be
said of
this chapter of her story is that one day when she was walking
to the village
on one of her rare and happy holidays she discovered that, in
widening
a bit of the highway, her friend the little barberry bush was
to be uprooted
and killed. And she took a spade that was lying idle, the
workmen having
gone down the road a short distance, and dug carefully around
the roots,
and put her treasure in a safe place by the wall. When she
returned, later
in the day, she shouldered it, thorns and all, and carried it
home, and
planted it in an excellent situation by the orchard fence; and
there it
still grows and flourishes. I suppose she will say to herself
as long as
she lives, when things look ugly and troublesome, "I'll see if
the other
side is any better, like my barberry bush."

NOTES

"Farmer Finch" first
appeared
in Harper's Magazine (70:198-211) in January 1885,
with an illustration
by Anne Whitney (1821-1915). An important 19th-century
American artist,
Whitney made her reputation as a sculptor, but she was also an
illustrator
and a poet of modest reputation. Her most famous statues
include Samuel
Adams in the Statuary Hall of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
and Charles
Sumner in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. Click here
to see the illustration. The story was collected
in A
White Heron, from which this text is taken. Errors that
have been corrected
are indicated with brackets. If you find errors in this text
or items you
believe should be annotated, please contact the site manager. [ Back
]

salt-marshes:
See Jewett's A Marsh Island (Chapter 7 for example)
for a description
of salt marsh life. [ Back
]

hamadryads: a
wood-nymph
said to live and die with the tree in which she resides. [ Back
]

asters and golden-rods:asters: The
flower heads
are often totally composed of petal-like ray flowers; they
range in color
from white and pale yellow to pink, rose, red, blue, purple,
and violet.
(Britannica Online; research, Barbara Martens)goldenrod: "A
plant of
the genus Solidago, esp. S. Virgaurea, having
a rod-like
stem and a spike of bright yellow flowers." (Source: Oxford
English
Dictionary). [ Back
]

barberry bush: "A
shrub
(Berberis vulgaris) found native in Europe and N.
America, with
spiny shoots, and pendulous racemes of small yellow flowers,
succeeded
by oblong, red, sharply acid berries; the bark yields a bright
yellow dye."
(Source: Oxford English Dictionary). Wikipedia
reports that the berries are edible, sharply flavored and rich
in vitamin C. The berries contain berberine, which has
various medicinal uses. The images of typical flowers
and berries are from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berberis.

temperate man:
In this
case, temperate refers to Mr. Finch's consumption of alcohol,
that he drank
none at all, except as here for medicinal purposes. [ Back
]

grin'-stone frame:
grind stone; a turning stone would sit in a frame, to be spun
with a handle
or treadle for sharpening tools such as axes. [ Back
]

Agriculturist:
According
to Frank Luther Mott in A History of American Magazines
(New York:
Appleton, 1930), the
American Agriculturist was probably the most
important and successful nineteenth-century agriculture
magazine, lasting
from 1842 until 1921 (p. 728). [ Back
]

Portsmouth ... Beverly:
Portsmouth is a seaport in New Hampshire. Beverly,
Massachusetts is just
north of Salem. Jerry's route and the proximity of Salem
suggest that the
Finch farm is near Salem. [ Back
]

commission firm ...
was routed
horse and foot: a commission firm
transacts business
for others, employing commission agents. Before mechanized
warfare, an
army could be routed horse and foot if both its cavalry and
foot-soldiers
were thoroughly defeated and forced to leave the field. [ Back
]

salt hay:
a main feed crop of salt-marsh farms. See Jewett's A Marsh
Island. [ Back
]

her husband was
killed in
the last war: almost certainly
this was the American
Civil War, 1860-1865. [ Back
]

out of his time:
When an apprentice (normally male) has completed his training
and may freely
seek employment or go into business, he is said to be "out of
his time." [ Back
]